


the girl with the umbrella

by Trillian_Astra



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, and don't get me started on the novelisation, and raleigh is a dork, mako mori is awesome, this movie has taken over my life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:39:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trillian_Astra/pseuds/Trillian_Astra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Raleigh Becket moves to a new town with his family, he starts a new school and the first person he meets is Mako Mori, clever, pretty and with an unusual connection to the school principal Mr Pentecost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the girl with the umbrella

It was raining as Raleigh arrived at his new school. His mom parked the car and gave him a hug, before handing him his bag and wishing him luck on his first day. He opened the car door and got out. Other students were hurrying past him, trying to get inside and out of the rain. He took a few steps before he saw the girl standing near the front doors with the umbrella.

Their eyes met, and before he knew it she was standing in front of him and the umbrella was sheltering them both from the rain.

“Hello,” she said. “You must be Raleigh. The principal asked me to meet you.”

“Oh. Thanks for bringing the umbrella.”

“This way,” she said, leading him inside. She paused just inside the front doors to shake out her umbrella, and then lead him down a couple of corridors. Soon they stopped just outside a door marked, _Stacker Pentecost, Principal_. She knocked on the door, listened for a moment, and opened it.

“Raleigh Becket is here, Principal.”

Raleigh blinked. The man speaking could only be described as imposing.  “Uh... hey,” he said.

The principal turned to his guide. “Thank you, Mako. You can get back to class now.”

“Of course,” she said, slipping past Raleigh and out into the corridor. She gave him a small smile as she left.

“So, Mr Becket,” the principal said. “Come in, have a seat.”

Raleigh sat down on the edge of one of the battered chairs. “Can you just, like, give me my schedule and get this over with?”

“All in good time, Mr Becket.  Now, your mother did let me know about your situation, and if there’s anything I can do to help, I want you to tell me.”

“Um… thanks, but I just want to go to my classes and get on with it, really.”

“Fair enough,” the principal said. “Here’s your class schedule. You can get your books from your teachers. You have Math first, the classroom is just down the corridor on your right.”

“Thanks,” Raleigh said, taking the schedule.

“Remember, if there’s anything at all… I’m always here.”

“I know.”

Raleigh got out of the office and found the Math classroom. He also found out that a) his math teacher was extremely Russian, b) his math teacher was more than a little terrifying, and c) the umbrella girl was in the same class.

As luck would have it, there was an empty seat next to hers. He quickly explained himself to the teacher, accepted a textbook, and sat down in the empty seat. He leant across slightly, and whispered, “Hey, I never caught your name…”

She looked at him. “Mako,” she said, “my name is Mako. Now concentrate.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said with a grin as he opened his textbook.

*

When the bell rang to signal the end of class, Raleigh shoved his books into his bag and leaned towards Mako. “So what class do you have next?”

“US History, why?”

“Uh,” he glanced at his schedule, “I have that too, could you show me where to go?”

“Sure,” she said brightly.

*

Raleigh followed Mako to US History, where they sat next to each other again, and Biology, where he got paired up with a chatty kid wearing a t-shirt for a band Raleigh had never heard of, who said his name was Newt and told him in a hurried whisper that it was vitally important that their experiment results were as good as possible.

“Uh, OK, because that means we get a good grade, right?”

“No! I mean, I guess that’s true too. But the real reason is because it’ll annoy Hermann if we do better than him.”

“Who?”

“That guy,” Newt gestured in the direction of a dark-haired kid on the far side of the lab, who looked back at them and scowled. “We’re … we’re friends, sort of. It’s cool.”

“Right,” Raleigh said, dubiously.

By the end of the class, Raleigh and Newt’s experiment looked pretty much exactly like everyone else’s, at least as far as Raleigh could see. He asked Newt if that was good, but the only reply he got was a shrug and a muttered “Nice to meet you, dude”.

He caught up with Mako as they were leaving class for lunch. “So, um, do you want to get something to eat?”

She glanced at him. “Oh, I’d like to, but I have somewhere to be… I’m sure you’ll find someone else to sit with, though.”

His disappointment must have shown, because she added quickly, “What have you got this afternoon?”

“Uh… Economics right after lunch, then French.”

“I have French last period as well! We’ll meet there, OK?”

“Um, OK,” he said as she hurried off. Feeling lost, he followed a group of his fellow students to the cafeteria, and looked around for somewhere to sit. He saw Newt and Hermann sitting at one table, but they were arguing about something and he didn’t think he wanted to get in the middle of whatever was going on there. He was still searching when he heard someone talk to him.

“Hey,” the voice said. Raleigh turned to see a boy  with slicked-back hair leaning against the wall. “You’re the new kid, right?”

“Yeah. I’m Raleigh.”

“Tendo,” the boy said. “I guess you don’t know anyone yet.”

“I only know two people here, and they’re both busy, apparently.”

“Right. You can hang out with me, if you want. I was going to head outside.”

Raleigh followed him outside to a patch of grass behind the school. As they sat down, Tendo said, “So, what’s your story? Not many kids start in the middle of the semester.”

“I just moved to town with my mom and my sister,” he said quickly.

“Oh.”

Raleigh waited for the inevitable question about why, and was surprised when it… didn’t come. Instead, Tendo looked away from him and called out, “Hey, babe,” to a tall girl with curly dark hair who was walking over to them.

“Who’s this?” she asked as she sat down next to Tendo.

“Alison, this is Raleigh, he’s new.”

“Nice to meet you, Raleigh,” she said.

“Thanks. You’re now officially the fourth person I know here, not counting teachers. So are you guys..”

They looked at each other briefly, and Alison said, “We’re not really into labels. But I guess we’re going out. So has someone shown you around yet?”

“This girl Mako showed me where some of the classrooms are, and the cafeteria. Mostly I’ve just been following people.”

“Well, we can’t have that, you’ll get a reputation… Tendo, why haven’t you shown him around yet? You could at least have drawn the poor guy a map!” she said, playfully pushing him.

“He didn’t ask, but fine, since you insist…” he said as he tore a blank page from his notebook and started drawing. Alison looked at Raleigh and whispered, “I have him _so_ whipped,” before giving him an exaggerated wink.

“Hey, I’m right here, you know,” Tendo protested. “And here, it’s not perfect but it’ll stop you from getting lost,” he said as he handed Raleigh the paper.

“Thanks, man.” Raleigh folded the piece of paper up and stashed it in his bag.

“No problem. Just don’t expect me to suddenly become your own personal guide to everything that happens here, this isn’t one of those dumb high school movies.”

*

As the bell rang to signal the end of lunch, Alison hurried off to Drama, leaving the boys to walk to Economics together.

“So what’s the teacher like?”

“Chau? Uh…”

“He can’t be worse than my math teacher… _she_ is scary.”

Tendo grinned. “Nah, Mrs Kaidanovsky’s all right. Once you get used to her. She has _epic_ taste in music. Mr Chau, mind…” he shook his head, “I wonder sometimes what he’s even doing as a teacher.”

“So you’re not going to tell me, then?”

“It’s best if you find out for yourself, grasshopper,” he said ominously.

*

The first warning sign, Raleigh mused, had been when they walked into the room to see their teacher sitting with his feet up on the desk, smoking a large cigar.

He glanced at Tendo, who just grinned at him.

The teacher – Mr Chau – looked at the assembled students, sighed, and stood up. He wrote _chapters 3 and 4_ on the board, paused, then looked back at Raleigh.

“You. New student?”

“Uh… yeah?”

“Here,” he said, throwing a textbook at him. Raleigh only just caught it. “I’m sure one of the others will catch you up. The rest of you, you know the drill. Work through the chapters, do the unit test at the end when you’re done.”

Then he sat back down, swung his feet up onto the desk, and put on sunglasses.

Raleigh blinked a couple of times, and looked to Tendo for explanation.

“See?” the other boy whispered. “It’s crazy. I suppose one day someone’ll figure out what’s going on with him, but I’ve got no clue. He does have the best-behaved classes, though… funny, that…”

 

 

  

 

 


End file.
